


Form and Function

by foxsgloves



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, FWP (Fusion With Plot), bonding and lowkey shipping, set during gem war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:09:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9099748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxsgloves/pseuds/foxsgloves
Summary: When Pearl is poofed during battle, Garnet watches over her combat teacher's gem as she regenerates, and finds that some things can surprise even her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> GOOOOOOOOOD EVENING EVERYBODY! I, certified Pearlnet garbage, have been kicking around this story of vintage gem bonding ever since The Answer aired approx. 84 years ago! I hope you enjoy!

Garnet was going to be late for training.

Garnet was never late for training.  In all of her six months with the Crystal Gems (Rose amused herself by measuring time by the turn of the planet and by the humans’ simplistic calendars, which she called “delightful”), it had only happened once, and besides, the night before she informed Pearl that she would not be present the following day due to an incident involving Bismuth and a lava cannon.  Pearl asked her to elaborate but eventually had to agree not to mark her truant.

She would this time, though, because Garnet had whittled away her time swapping stories of last night’s battle with Crazy Lace and the Quartz Corps, fists still sheathed in their gauntlets, electric with excitement over her first real victories.  It had been her fist that had hammered three Homeworld Jaspers into submission, her efforts that had felled a huge sheet of rock, blocking the way for some of the key peripheral reinforcements.

She didn’t expect Pearl had seen her.  She had seen Pearl, after all, a faraway blur of blue and a streak of silver, always at Rose’s right hand, the two moving as one in one unstoppable force.  At one point, they had whirled together in a spray of violet light, drawing gasps from the Crystal Gems, howls of rage and terror from the Homeworld forces.

“Rainbow Quartz,” said one of Garnet’s Amethyst companions by way of explanation, with wide eyes and open mouth.  And then the battle was near over before Garnet could take a second look, each of her three eyes round in surprise.  A hundred futures ground away to nothing in the wake of their victory.

She expected to find Pearl at the crest of the sparring hill, tapping one foot in impatience, marks of weariness under both of her eyes that she cheerfully ignored, already projecting a series of overly complex sparring forms from her gem.  She did not expect to find the hill empty, long grass swaying like water in a stiff breeze.

She sat on the top of the hill with her legs folded underneath her and attempted to meditate, cracking her red eye open to glance down the slope.  Then again.  No Pearl.  She stretched and worked through all of the easy stances she knew, striking and wheeling at imaginary Homeworld enforcers.  No Pearl.  She worked through the more difficult forms, wincing when her sloppy footwork sent her rolling down the slope.  No Pearl, though she was glad there was no Pearl to witness that.

The wind stilled, the grass sighed, and puffs of little snowflakes drifted lazily from the sky.  Ruby and Sapphire came out for a little while, because Ruby loved to watch how Sapphire could set the flakes swirling and drifting and quivering like nebulae, and Sapphire giggled at how the flakes all melted around Ruby before they could touch her skin.

When they reformed she spent some time looking over her new outfit, which they both agreed was very stylish.  It was only three colors and mostly the same texture now.  Pearl would approve.

But she couldn’t show Pearl, because there was still no Pearl.

With a frustrated huff, she pushed herself off the hill and hiked back towards the warp pad, to find Rose, because when anyone needed to search for Pearl they would find her at Rose’s side.  But this time Pearl was not at Rose’s right hand but inside it, Rose cupping Pearl’s gem gently, her lips thin with displeasure.

“She’s not cracked,” Rose assured, even though Garnet could see so, with both her third eye and her two ordinary.

Garnet squinted down at Pearl with bemusement.  “Something’s… not right.”  She yanked at the tangled knot of possibility, waiting for something to shake loose.  In all the would-be worlds she saw, Pearl did not regenerate for at least five days.  Sometimes eight.  Sometimes fourteen.  “It’s going to take her too long.”

If a Ruby wasn’t back on her feet within two hours, she was considered shirking her duty, and would be subject to discipline upon presenting herself.  Sapphire, for her part, had never been poofed herself, but she too thought any length of time longer than three days was unheard of.

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” said Rose, closing her hand over the gem, bringing it close to her nose to examine with half-lidded eyes.  “This… is how she does things." 

How Pearl did things was the only thing the other Crystal Gems spoke of on Garnet’s way to the forge.  Some hushed with awe, some with the weight of exhausted disapproval, some with the bitter bite of anger or jealousy.  _She did it again.  Did you hear?  Took an axe blow from a Jasper fusion.  Knew she’d poof.  Was aiming for Rose.  Did it for her._

“Who, Pearl? Oh, she’s always like this,” said Bismuth, with a dismissive flap of her hand, in the midst of repairing the sword Pearl had dropped on the battlefield.  “She’s very… how should I put this… Likes things just so.  Physical form’s no different.  But don’t worry yourself, she should back with us in about, oh, I don’t know, maybe a week.”

“A week,” said Garnet, her voice flat with shock.

“Two if she’s feeling especially fussy.  One time she spent a whole two weeks in stasis, just to pop back up exactly the same, except her skirt was shorter by two inches!” Bismuth threw back her head to laugh.  “’Course, that was during a lull.  Some fighting shows up, she’ll be right back there right next to Rose, just you believe.”

There was no fighting.  Pearl stayed by Rose’s side in her gem form for four days, and the worlds of possibility split and frayed and she did not reappear.  Garnet spent her mornings sparring with Bismuth, and with Crazy Lace, and with Big Ammy, but it really just wasn’t the same without Pearl fussing over her stance and offering her Pearl Points after every successful session. 

She almost had enough Pearl Points to buy a shell.  What she was going to do with it she had no idea, but Pearl seemed very excited to give it to her.  Pearl thought systems of positive reinforcement based on physical possessions given as rewards for good performance was one of the best concepts the humans had ever come up with.

It was strange to think she had once been afraid of her, a shaky and knock-kneed new arrival to the Crystal Gems, barely able to summon her weapon after five minutes of brow-furrowing concentration, still a little insulted on each of her other half’s behalf at Rose’s tactful suggestion that perhaps she might need to re-learn how to fight. “Ruby knew how to fight without seeing anything but the one future she made, and Sapphire knew how to look at all the possibilities while only sitting still.  But you’re not either of them. It’s all right to give yourself time to learn again,” said Rose with a series of encouraging pats, before leaving Garnet to Pearl’s mercy with barely a cheerful wave and farewell.

Everyone in Blue Diamond’s court whispered lurid stories of Rose Quartz’s terrifying renegade Pearl--Sapphire, who disliked gossip as a rule, had still heard more than her share in her day. They said she never tired, felt no pain, that only the leash of Rose’s command kept her awful thirst for combat at bay. They said that to watch her fight itself was painful, all of a Pearl’s grace and agility honed to an unnatural sharpness. 

Sapphire, and therefore Garnet, liked to believe she could make up her own mind at such things, but it had still been an uneasy few days placing herself into study with the gem who had threatened her at sword-point twice.

The rumors neglected to mention, of course, how she hummed thoughtlessly to herself when practicing, and how she left her sword lying around in random corners and was always chasing after it, wringing her hands and squawking about how forgetful she was. How the little Amethysts followed her around like a flock of birds, constantly being shooed away, and how she stood and clapped when Garnet finally managed to stick her landings just so.  And of course the Pearl Points.

Ruby liked to watch her fight, all of a Pearl’s grace and agility honed to admirable sharpness.  Sapphire was very impressed to find she could pilot shuttlecraft, with much greater skill than she, who learned as a hobby, had ever been able to do.

And at some point, without noticing, Garnet had begun to look forward to seeing her every day.  On the fourth day she got tired of staring into the endless churn of possible worlds and went to find Rose Quartz.

Rose was in her gardens, unusually still and uncharacteristically silent, her full pink mouth pursed with thought.  Great plump roses, the size of a fusion’s fist, dotted the thick, ropy thorns that sprang up beneath her perch.

“Hello, Garnet.  I like your new form.  It suits you very well,” said Rose.  Garnet’s mouth pinched up into an embarrassed little smile.  “Why don’t you join me?”

Garnet nodded and pulled herself up onto a bare lip of rock.  She liked the garden, the aimless song of bird and bug, the rush of water, the smell of growing things.  The two of them sat, Rose’s bare feet swinging aimlessly over the edge of her perch.  She held Pearl cupped in the crook of her elbow.

“So,” said Rose, with some of her usual animation in the form of wide eyes and a broad smile.  “How are you feeling today, Garnet? Do you still feel like you’re who you’re supposed to be?” 

“I like being myself.” Garnet opened and closed her hands, her fingertips brushing against her gemstones.  Ruby and Sapphire’s joy hummed to the tips of her fingers, in the soles of her feet, beneath her eyelids when she closed her eyes and tilted her head against the sun.  “I like being myself very much.”

“That’s wonderful.  You’ve hardly begun to exist, and you already know how to love yourself.”  Pearl shifted as Rose moved her arm to clasp her hands.  “Some gems—some people—search for that their whole lives.”

The two sat in companionable silence, Garnet jiggling her crossed knees in time to the rush of water from Rose’s fountain.  With a groan, Rose’s vines twirled another foot in length, tiny pink buds peeping from between their thorns. 

Garnet gestured to Pearl.  “May I take her?”  Rose curled her arm around the gem in surprise.  “It’s just, in some of the futures I can see, I’m there when she regenerates.  I thought if I carried her awhile maybe it will happen.”

“Interesting.  How very interesting,” said Rose, her eyes alight.  “So that’s how it works?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Garnet, lowering her visor so Rose could see her squint.  “I’m just figuring it out as I go.” 

“Hmm.  Well.  I think that would be fine with her.”  Rose leaned closer, placing her hand beside her mouth as she dropped her voice.  “She talks about you sometimes, you know.  I think she likes you.” 

She surrendered Pearl’s gem into Garnet’s outstretched hands with a gentle brush of her thumb.  “Rest well, my Pearl.  We’re all looking forward to seeing you again.”

Garnet carried Pearl in her cupped hands back and forth all over the Crystal Gems’ camp, her toes catching on stray rocks as she turned her gaze towards the future. There was a chance Pearl might reappear on the fifth day at the shoreside, so she went to the beach and clasped Pearl in her laced fingers while she watched the push and pull of the surf.

Pearl liked the beach.  It was one of the first places she took Garnet for training, insisting with a wag of her finger that one needed to practice movement on the shifting and unpredictable surface. After Garnet received a faceful of sand a satisfactory number of times, Pearl showed her how to shape it into things. Grounded spaceships that twirled in circles, noses bobbing up and down. A little replica of a Diamond base with rotating ports and rotating conveyor walks, which Pearl smoothed over with her hand, frowning. Little figures of gems that clasped hands twirled about one another, melting into one. 

Garnet placed Pearl in the sand and shoveled about with her hands to make four walls and a little tower with a pink ribbon for a flag, the ribbons Pearl liked to pin on her pupil’s chest after an especially satisfying training session. When the walls began to hiss and shed and crumple, she smacked a gauntleted hand next into the ground beside it, and with a crackle the little house turned to shining glass, Pearl gleaming, untouched, within.

“Guess you don’t feel like coming out yet,” Garnet muttered, scooping her out of the sand.

The first possibility point had passed. 

The second was the next day, sunrise, Bismuth’s forge.  Garnet stretched her arms above her head, settling in by a thick sluice of lava to bask in the heat, with a few peeks into the future to make sure it wouldn’t crack Pearl.  How Pearl had screamed the first time she saw Garnet plunge into the pools of lava, only to heave a huge sigh of relief, her hands still clasped over her mouth, when Garnet waded back out again, raw magma dripping from her arms, to give her a thumbs-up.

Bismuth was intent on her work of repairing the last cracks in Pearl’s sword. Garnet sat and watched and waited, and even provided advice on how to ask a friend to fuse from a young Jasper in what she hoped was a mysterious, cool, unflappable way before Bismuth shooed the kid out the door.

But even when Bismuth held up the finished blade, glossy and keen-edged, Pearl did not stir. 

“Go to her quarters and move some of her things around.  Not a lot, just a little, enough that only she would notice. She’ll probably regenerate out of spite,” Bismuth suggested. Garnet did not take this advice.

The third was sundown on the seventh day at the stone arena, so that was where Garnet sat, Pearl’s gem resting on her crossed knees.  The air was heavy and fragrant with the promise of rain.  She had come to be fond of rain, despite how Ruby had so hated it during her first minutes stranded on Earth, each drop sizzling and snapping as they struck her skin.  Sapphire could probably freeze the droplets as they fell.  That might be a fun thing to try, sometime.

As the first few drops landed on the backs of her hands, Pearl’s gem grew warm, then began to glow.  With a rattle and a burst of radiance, she sprang forth, shining, alighting on the tip of one pointed toe.

She’d kept her skirt the same, only now it had a little matching translucent shawl about her shoulders, which she tossed as she settled to her feet with a sigh, stretching her arms above her head.  “I’m back!  Sorry I took so long, I hope I didn’t miss anything, Ro—“

She glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening as she took in the open sky, and the stone arena, and Garnet, and, presumably, the lack of Rose Quartz.  “Garnet!  What’s going on! Has something happened?” Her hands twisted in the space at her hip where her scabbard should have hung.  “Where’s Rose?”

“Waiting in the garden, probably,” said Garnet, uncrossing her legs.

“What do you mean, waiting in the garden?” Pearl plucked at the hem of her new shawl.  “For what?  A sneak attack? A diplomatic delegation?”

“Nope.  Looked like she was just resting for a bit.” 

Pearl threw her arms up in frustration. “But then what’d she give me to you for?” 

“Because I asked her to,” said Garnet, pushing her visor up atop her hair so she could blink at Pearl with all three eyes together.  How strange, that she could look into the future and still see things not turn out the way she had planned, had wanted. 

Pearl, round-eyed, drew her curled hands against her chest. “Oh.  I see.  Well, I suppose I owe you an apology.  That was quite rude of me.  It’s only that…”

“You were expecting someone else,” Garnet supplied.

“Yes,” said Pearl with a downward glance and a little toss off her hair.  It was, Garnet surmised, maybe an inch longer.

“Your hair’s different.”  Garnet lowered her visor off her own hair.  “It looks nice.”

“Oh.  Thank you for, ah, noticing.”  Pearl brushed some of said hair from her cheek, only to let it fall back in place.  “And it was very kind of you to hold on to me while you were waiting.  I can take a long time!” she said with a wide, nervous smile and a flap of her hand.  “I hope you were able to practice while I was gone?” 

“I did.  Bismuth and Big Ammy sparred with me while I was waiting.”

“Oh! Well! Did you win?”

“Bismuth went easy.  But yes.” Garnet attempted to bite back her proud smile, without success.

Pearl clapped her hands.  “You’ve come such a long way.  Only a few more lessons and you won’t need me anymore.”  Her smile dropped from her face, briefly, before she said with forced brightness, “Why don’t you show me what you practiced? Oh, but my sword --”

“At Bismuth’s.  She finished repairing it yesterday.”

“Hmm.  I suppose I could… just use my gem weapon?” 

Garnet’s visor hid her raised eyebrows.  Pearl hardly ever used her gem weapon.  Some of the younger gems assumed the sword was made from her, not forged by an outside hand.  Garnet herself had only seen it once, when she was forced to pull it out on the battlefield after her blade of her sword was sheared clean off.

She knew it was a spear, had seen this possibility flickering in her third eye, but was still surprised to see it, a gleaming helix with a wicked point, pulled from Pearl’s gem in a shaky, unpracticed motion.  Surprised enough to take Pearl’s first strike to her shoulder, unguarded.

Pearl clicked her tongue.  “Don’t tell me I’m gone for a week and you’ve already forgotten everything I taught you.”

Garnet replied with a grin and a bash from both of her gauntleted fists.

They circled about the arena until Garnet was sure the sun would come up again any second, until they had worn the stone smooth beneath their feet.  At long last, Pearl held up her crossed hands, and they collapsed on the lowest bench, Garnet collapsing backward with her arms spread, Pearl primly cross-legged with her hands clasped in her lap.

“You’ve certainly been working very hard,” she said, with a brief and hesitant clasp of Garnet’s arm.  “If you ask me, I think you’re the Crystal Gems’ star pupil!  Oh, but don’t tell the little Amethysts I said that, though.” 

“I saw you,” said Garnet, “during the battle.”

“Did you?” Pearl asked casually, her clasped hands tightening in her lap.

“I saw Rainbow Quartz.”

“Well, yes, I’m sure everyone saw.  She’s a bit hard to miss.”

“And I came back, and you’d poofed.”

Pearl gave Garnet a quick, sidelong glance, as if to confirm the undercurrent of worry in her voice.  “Yes.”

“They said it happens a lot.”

“They.” Pearl’s eyes narrowed.  “Who is they?”

“Everyone,” said Garnet.

“Well, you shouldn’t listen to everything you hear!” Pearl waved her hands with a huff.  “These sorts of things happen when you fight alongside our general.  Rose draws our enemy’s fiercest attacks, and sometimes I’m her first line of defense.  It’s basic strategy.”

Garnet wondered how much Rose knew, and acknowledged, that Pearl considered herself Rose’s shield. “So this is how she wants things, then.”

“Of course she doesn’t!” Pearl squawked.  “But she’s our leader, she’s irreplaceable, and sometimes sacrifices have to be made.  It’s just that simple!”

“It could have shattered you.  You could have been… broken.”

“Well, clearly,” said Pearl, her voice rising to the heights of anger, “it didn’t!”

They sat for a few seconds, Pearl’s anger a brittle shield between them, as Garnet turned her third eye away from the stars, grasping at the fraying strands of the futures where she didn’t turn away.

“I can’t tell if it gets any easier.  Being the one left behind.  Watching and waiting to see who’s been cracked.  Broken.  Shattered.”  Pearl turns back towards her, wide-eyed.  Not what Pearl was expecting.  Garnet doesn’t need future vision for that.

It’s the one answer her powers have no recourse for.  It’s the one question Sapphire, who held up her skirt to walk the burned and blasted surfaces of a dozen dead planets, that Ruby, who went into battle and shattered another gem beneath the light of a distant star not a day after she was born, never thought to ask.  Loss meant nothing before they—before she—actually had things she could lose. 

Pearl shifted onto one hip and hand, her fingers inches away from Garnet’s own, where it lay outstretched on the stone.  “No.  No, it doesn’t.” 

“You must do something about it, then.”

Pearl turned her gaze to the stars, gazing up at what Garnet is sure is distant Homeworld.  Surely Pearl had the exact coordinates measured, could find it anywhere in the strange sky of Earth even as it wheeled about with the turn of the planet.  “Well.  It won’t always be like this.  Someday, the war will be over.”  She clenched her other hand.  “So when I think I can’t go on, I think of that world instead, and the life we’ll have together, someday.”  She turned back to Garnet with a smile bright as the starlight.  “And then nothing else matters!”

Images rose and crashed like a tide in Garnet’s mind, so fast and fierce she couldn’t distinguish her visions from her own imagination, her own fear.  Or maybe there wasn’t really a difference.  Pearl’s fist clenched around the hilt of an imaginary blade, taut and quivering with passion.  She will carry Rose Quartz’s banner of war until it is shredded and faded beyond recognition.  She will take her sword in hand and throw herself at Rose’s enemy, between Rose and the enemy, until her blade breaks, until her body breaks, again and again and again.

Garnet wondered how she ever forgot, even for a moment, just how Pearl is terrifying.

Pearl turned back to the stars before rising to her feet, offered a hand to Garnet, which became two as she braced in her feet even as Garnet helped her with a balancing hand. 

“We’ll be there together.  You’ll see.”

With a final glance at the stars and a squeeze of farewell, Pearl paced to the warp pad without looking over her shoulder, only to throw a surprised look back as Garnet split in half with a flash and a pop.

Ruby and Sapphire joined hands, pressed shoulders together, forehead and lips, and Pearl turned back towards her, one arm wrapped around her chest, to see Garnet again, sliding her visor back on.  “That’s the thing, though.  I can’t see it.  I can’t see that future.  I couldn’t even see if you were cracked or not, when they brought you back.  Not at first.”

Pearl, huge eyes drooping, mouth softening, returns to the stone bench and sits beside her again, like she knew she would.  Garnet pressed the gems in her hands against the rough rock.  “I was born here.  I became myself here, right here, in this arena.  And I suppose I have you to thank for that.”  One corner of her mouth turned up.  “I wouldn’t be myself at all if you hadn’t thrust a sword in Sapphire’s face.”

Pearl gaped for a few seconds before she realized this was a joke, and let out a small, wheezy giggle.

“I was a threat, to both you and Rose.”  Even then, newborn on quaking legs, she had seen the threads of her own life.  How quickly they could have been cut, in the worlds where Pearl chose a different path.  “You could have struck me down.  But you didn’t.  And I’m glad.  I never thanked you for that.”

“Hmmm.” Pearl laced her fingers in her lap with a bashful shrug.  “Not much to thank me for.  I was too surprised to do much of anything.”

“Would be nice if that worked on the Homeworld armies,” Garnet murmured.  “I should try fusing in front of them.  Give them a shock.”

Pearl giggled, genuinely, cheeks flaring blue.  “I’m… I’m glad you’re here too, Garnet.  If I had attacked you here, I would have destroyed something good, something beautiful.”  She gestured outward at the arena.  “And I’m so glad I didn’t.” 

“Oh.”  Garnet’s grin dropped from her face in her surprise.  “Thank you.”  It was something, to know that she could live hundreds of years beneath the skies of a hundred planets and see a hundred thousand possible worlds, and the world still had things she couldn’t see left in store for her.

Pearl, her blue flush creeping down her neck, fiddled with the tips of her index fingers.  “You… carried me around while I was regenerating?” she said abruptly, quickly.  “After you saw I wasn’t cracked?”  Garnet nodded.  “For how long?" 

“Only three days.”

“What did we do together?”

“Um.  Not a whole lot.” Garnet fiddled with the set of her visor on her nose. “I took you to Bismuth’s. I watched the little gems and thought about how you’d scold them if you saw their sloppy forms.” Pearl cracked a little smile. “And I made you a sand fortress.”

Pearl folded her legs beneath herself. “Why?”

“Because Ruby likes building things.  So do you.” 

“No, no, I mean… why did you carry me around with you for that time?  I thought it was maybe because Rose asked you to, because she wanted a break, but… you asked her, didn’t you?”  Garnet nodded.  “Why?”

With a little shrug, she said, “Because I could see some of the times when you might be yourself again.  And… I wanted to be there when it happened.  I wanted to welcome you back.”

Pearl pressed her forehead into a hand.  “You wanted to… welcome me.  And here I am, popping out of my gem wondering where the assassination attempt is, ungrateful as you please.”

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t wake up ready to fight ten assassins.”

Pearl huffed.  “Please.  I think I could take twenty assassins at least.  Thirty on a good day.”  Her fingers inched closer across the stone until they brushed against Garnet’s.  Garnet turned over her hand, palm-up, and she placed her own within it.  “Thanks,” she said, and Garnet raised her other hand and she clasped that one, too, and squeezed--

A flash of light, a crack like thunder, a pull and pressure at her gems, and then Garnet found herself half-splayed on the edge of the bench, Pearl lying on the stone five meters away.

Pearl sprang to her feet, clutching at her hair.  “What was that!” she squawked, eyes huge.

Garnet surveyed her hands with surprise, flexing her tingling fingers.  “I didn’t see that coming.”  As Pearl began to pace back and forth across the arena, she said, “I think we… I think we fused.”

Pearl’s eyes grew round and wet as stopped in her tracks, paused in the midst of waving her index finger in the air.  “Oh.  Oh.” And she rubbed her streaming eyes on the back of her arm with a muffled sniffle.

Garnet leapt up from her bench.  “Don’t cry, Pearl!” She lay a hand on Pearl’s quivering shoulder when Pearl didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it by accident--”

“Sorry! What are you sorry for?” said Pearl as she scrubbed at her cheeks.  “I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“So… you didn’t mind it, then.”

“Mind it!” Pearl’s cheeks flared bright blue. “I, uh… um… it was nice.  From what, uh, little I can remember.”

“Oh.” Garnet took a breath.  “We could try it again. On purpose, this time.”

Dozens and dozens of possible worlds stretched across the silence like cracks on a pane of glass. A few of them, Garnet noted with some trepidation she kept hidden behind her visor, involved their relationship as comrades, and as teacher and student, completely shattered.  A handful of others, on the other hand, appeared to involve…

“Yes,” said Pearl.  “Let’s try it again.”  She gave a decisive nod, then immediately clapped her hand over her mouth.  “I mean, that is, if you want to give it another go right now…”

“It’s not like there’s any wrong time for this sort of thing.”

Pearl glanced down, eyes wide, to where Garnet’s hand rested on her shoulder.  “Well, you’re the expert, I suppose,” she said with a watery giggle.  “So do we just start dancing, or--” She shrugged and waved her hands in mute frustration.

“We can do it however you want to do it.”

With a deep breath, Pearl took two paces away, then turned back towards Garnet, clasping her hands over her chest to bow from the waist.  Ruby and Sapphire had a brief internal squabble—Ruby wanted to bow also, while Sapphire tried to curtsy—which ended in a compromise of Garnet inclining her head with one fist at her opposite shoulder.

Pearl rested her hands on Garnet’s shoulders, Garnet wrapped her own around Pearl’s wait, and they danced.

At first Pearl nearly knocked Garnet’s visor from her face with a stray elbow and Garnet trod on Pearl’s foot more than once as Sapphire squabbled with Ruby on where to put her feet, but they settled into an alternating rhythm as white light from Pearl’s gem spilled out over the stone.  Quicker, lighter, Garnet lifting her arm so Pearl could twirl in a circle with her leg outstretched; slower, softer, their chests and hips meeting--

The light rose, swelled, burst, and a disappointed Garnet was once against thrust back into her own body, lying flat on the stone, Pearl grunting in frustration beside her.

She brushed dust off her waist and out of her hair as she rose to her knees.  “We don’t have to try again, if you don’t want.”

Pearl sighed.  “No, I do, I do! I’m sorry.  I’m just… no good at this sort of thing!  I’ve never…” She wrapped her arms around herself, her voice heavy.  “I’ve never fused with anyone before.  Except… except for Rose.”

“Well.  Think of it this way.  I, myself, have never fused with anyone before.”  She lifted her visor so Pearl could see her red eye wink and the blue one flutter its lashes.  “This will be my first time.”

That was pretty smooth.  Both halves of her were very tickled with themselves.

“Oh!” Pearl pressed her face into her hands.  “But what if it’s terrible?  I don’t want your first fusion experience as Garnet to be terrible, because of me!”

“Pearl, Ruby and Sapphire’s first fusion was by accident during an attack from your own rebel army, during which you threatened us both.  And their second involved falling down a hill to find themselves at the point of your sword, _again_.” An embarrassed little smile tugged at Pearl’s lips at the memory. “If you think you can do worse than all that, I’d really like to see you try.”

Pearl sighed, her breaths returning to something resembling an even rhythm as she untangled her hands from her hair.  “All right… all right.  I, uh.  Maybe a change of scenery?” She gestured about her at the dusty arena.  “This isn’t really the best environment, is it?”

“Speak for yourself,” said Garnet with a teasing smile, but she allowed Pearl to lead her to the warp pad, and though she did not look into the future she was not surprised in the least to see the blue light recede to reveal the beach at night, sand glittering in the starlight.

“All right.  Okay.”  Pearl rubbed her forearms.  “This is better.  Let me just limber up first.”

She paced a few strides away over the sand, settling into a bent-knee lunge with her arms twisted above her head.  At first she kept throwing anxious glances over her shoulder at Garnet, who kept her silent place, the slight night breeze ruffling at her hair.

She loved the wind, and the whisper and hush of the waves over wet sand, and the scent and taste of salt on the air, the dry rustle of palm leaves as they skimmed against one another.  Out of all the planets and wonders either Ruby or Sapphire had set foot on—and it was a considerable list, for either—none had a place anything like it.  If she wasn’t careful, she just might burst apart, so the two of them could twirl about in the surf together.

Funny, how sometimes it was the things all of her was excited for, the things she loved best, that threatened to tear her apart.  The things she was so eager to experience as herself.

Pearl settled back on her feet, raising one arm above her head, one pointed toe on the sand.  “So, um, I’ll just come to you, I guess?”

“You come to me, I’ll come to you.” One very nice thing about being made of love, Garnet thought, was that apparently this sort of thing came very naturally to her.

And they danced, at first apart, Pearl twirling to some internal rhythmn, Garnet skimming her hands over the curve of her own cheek and hip, settling into herself as one body dancing, Ruby and Sapphire’s mutual enthusiasm smoothing into something that was not Ruby’s precise flailing or Sapphire’s stately grace but something else, something that was only Garnet.

And then together, their hands clasped, Garnet grasping Pearl’s waist to lift her into the air with a huge grin and a squeal of delight, and she dropped into Garnet’s open arms, and--

They came together, and she lost herself.

* * *

 

An indeterminate amount of time later, they lay splayed together on the beach, Pearl’s head resting on Garnet’s waist, the incoming tide twining up Garnet’s ankles.  The sun was out.  It was daytime.

“My goodness.”  Pearl pushed herself onto her knees, pressing a hand to her chest.  “Did we really throw Bismuth into the air?”

“Had to prove how strong we were.”  Bismuth had asked for it, and laughed and shrieked uproariously the entire time she was airborne.  After they set her back on the ground they found themselves surrounded by a cluster of gems screaming to be next.

“Did we really do that thing with the dragonflies with every gem we came across?”

“Nothing more important that an entrance.” Curtains of light, parting to burst into glittering, fluttering pieces.  An entrance, to be certain.  They’d changed the colors with each try, and both liked golden best by the end.

“And dismantle Blue Diamond’s wreck piece by piece--”

“Had to prove how precise we were.  And intelligent.  And faultless.”  Somewhere in the depths of the jungle, the remains of the ship were laid out piece by shining piece.  A line of screws and divots arranged first by function and then by size.

“And dance with Rose in front of everyone--”

“That definitely happened.”  No one was more thrilled to see Garnet and Pearl’s fusion besides themselves except for perhaps their illustrious leader Rose Quartz, who had stars in her eyes the entire time they--she? Introduced herself.  And picked her up.  And sparred with her, at Rose’s own suggestion, their giant hammer bounding off her shield with a resounding, ringing crash again and again and again.  Which ended with Rose whooping and shrieking in delight, which ended in a dance, which ended with them dipping her.

“It was every so lovely to meet you, Sardonyx,” she said with a glowing smile and a low curtsy.  “I hope we get to see you again soon.”

“That happened,” said Pearl, voice quivering.

“That happened,” said Garnet, biting her grinning lower lip.

Pearl stared at Garnet before bursting into a froth of giggles, throwing her arms around her.  Garnet, heaving with laughter, pushed herself up and clasped her and twirled her around in a circle in the surf before they both collapsed in a heap in the water.

Pearl coughed, her cheeks flaring blue.  “I liked it. I… like us.”

“It was okay, I guess,” said Garnet, her smile betraying her attempt at dull sarcasm, but even so worry flashed across Pearl’s face before Garnet splashed her with a handful of water.  With a frown of distaste she shook droplets from her shawl.  “I liked us, too.”

She gave Pearl a hand up out of the water.  “So does this mean I get the day off training?”

Pearl sniffed.  “Well, you’ve essentially graduated now, so your training regimen is your own responsibility. But if you think you can beat your former teacher--” She cupped a hand in the water and flicked it right at Garnet’s head--”you had better keep practicing!”

Garnet, laughing, heaved water back and was rewarded with a screech. She closed her eyes, her two ordinary from the light and spray and her third from the future. In a few minutes Pearl would wring out her skirt and flutter back to camp in a panic, looking for her sword, looking for Rose, fretting about all the things she missed while she was gone.  She, Garnet, would de-fuse in Pearl’s wake and let Ruby and Sapphire have their fun in the surf, Ruby laughing uproariously as the tide would hiss and steam upon hitting her skin, Sapphire leaving trails of ice crystals in her wake.

But until then, she can enjoy those few minutes.  And perhaps, in the future, she might be able to expect more moments like this.

No, she definitely could.  She was sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I added like 400 views to the Sardonyx dance video while I was drafting this... you know, for research purposes...
> 
> Thanks for stopping by to read!


End file.
